


All the Things That Used to Matter

by speakpirate



Category: Pretty Little Liars
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:18:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakpirate/pseuds/speakpirate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Nights on the town with Cece meant that they never paid for their own drinks, regularly sharked guys out of money at the pool table, and frequently flirted with three or four men at once just to see if they could instigate a bar fight or two.  When they did, which was fairly often, Cece would sit back and exchange an amused look with Melissa, sipping her drink casually as someone broke a bottle over their friend’s head.  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Boys,” she would say, swirling the ice in her glass.  “They’re just so easy.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Things That Used to Matter

Melissa Hastings stood with a hand on her hip and a big smile on her face that did little to mask how hard she was gritting her teeth.

“But you’ve already seen _The Fast and the Furious_ ,” she pointed out to Ian Thomas, as they stood in front of the movie ticket kiosk. “Twice.” She sighed with poorly concealed frustration. After all her meticulous planning for their date night - the reservations at Lacroix, the new forest green dress shirt that she’d picked out for him, the revival of _The Philadelphia Story_ that was playing in fifteen minutes - now he had to throw a wrench into the whole perfect evening by arguing about how they should see his favorite stupid action movie. Again.

“At least it won’t make me fall asleep,” he protested. “Seriously, all those black and white movies are a snooze.” He reached to push the button for his selection as Melissa smacked his hand away. She snatched his credit card and purchased two tickets for _The Philadelphia Story._ Then she took his arm pleasantly and kissed him on the cheek, steering him firmly into the theatre lobby.

“THOMAS!” a loud voice boomed out, and Melissa’s heart sank as she glanced towards the sound. It had to be one of his fraternity brothers, a group of guys who - despite being at an Ivy League school - seemed to be a bunch of slack jawed athletes whose main interests were keg stands and belching contests.

Ian was already grinning and waving, as Melissa noted that it was worse than expected. Three guys were standing together near the concession stand, clustered around a slender blond in a floaty blue peasant dress. One of the frat bros was handing the girl a purple unicorn that it looked like he’d maybe won out of the claw machine. Another was offering her a cherry icee, while the third was holding her purse with a dopey look on his face, as if he couldn’t believe his good luck.

Claw machine guy, who Melissa was pretty sure was called Fisher, was the one hailing them over, apparently wanting to show off his date. If she was his date, Melissa thought. If she wasn’t like, on a date with all three of them. Melissa gave her a quick once over and had to admit she was a knock out - delicate features, big blue eyes, stylish heels. She must be a simpleton, Melissa decided. Otherwise, she could do a lot better than these bozos. 

“Thomas,” Fisher implored. “C’mere. Tell her about the time we stole that stop sign!” The other guys chortled with laughter as Ian launched into the story. The blonde, however, looked a little bored. 

“What movie are you two seeing?” she asked, interrupting Ian.

“The Fast and the FURIOUS!” the bro holding her purse shouted, high fiving his comrades, obviously confused about who the question was for. The girl rolled her eyes, and Melissa bit back a small snort of laughter.

“We’re seeing _The Philadelphia Story_ ,” Melissa answered, as she dug her fingernails into Ian’s shoulder to signal that they were done here. “Nice to see you again, boys.”

“Pussy whipped,” Fisher coughed into his hand.

Ian wasn’t cooperating. “Come on,” he said, as he smiled his most charming smile. “Wouldn’t it be more fun to go with the guys? I’ll make it up to you later.” 

The blond woman grabbed her purse, her Icee, and the unicorn, then folded her ticket into the pocket of Ian’s shirt. “You’re right,” she declared. “You boys have fun.” She winked at Fisher. “Maybe _he’ll_ give you a handjob in the back row.” Then she swept Melissa off down the opposite hallway and left the four Kappas bewilderedly staring after them.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” she said, with a dazzling smile. “I’m Cece Drake.”

\------

Ian had to walk back to campus that night. His fraternity brothers were still mad, and someone had pulled the pins out of every tire on his car.

\------

Before she met Cece, Melissa had collected friends the way her mother collected French antiques - she considered them in terms of how they would look in the family room, whether they gave good value at dinner parties. Who would be the best doubles partner if she wanted to beat Spencer in the club tournament. Who had low self-esteem and a father with a villa in Tuscany. Whether or not she actually liked them was beside the point. Liking people was just another way of giving them power, Melissa thought, an image of Spencer trailing after Alison and the other girls rising to the forefront of her mind.

But Cece was different. She was double majoring in Econ and Psych, with minors in Marketing and Philosophy. She’d read just about every book in the entire world and could discuss Chinese currency devaluation or the hottest trends from Paris Fashion Week, depending on her mood. She spoke eight different languages, and claimed to have broken a guy’s nose for claiming that Jack Kerouac was a better writer than Jane Austen. 

Melissa couldn’t be sure how many of Cece’s stories were true, but they were all entertaining, and Cece herself was so brash and unpredictable that hanging out with her was actually _fun_.

Nights on the town with Cece meant that they never paid for their own drinks, regularly sharked guys out of money at the pool table, and frequently flirted with three or four men at once just to see if they could instigate a bar fight or two. When they did, which was fairly often, Cece would sit back and exchange an amused look with Melissa, sipping her drink casually as someone broke a bottle over their friend’s head. 

“Boys,” she would say, swirling the ice in her glass. “They’re just so easy.”

\--------------

A few days before Melissa’s birthday, Cece texted an invitation to meet at the Art Museum at 430pm. There was a Van Gogh exhibit that Melissa had been trying to get Ian to go to for weeks, but she still felt a little miffed that Cece apparently expected them to breeze through the whole thing in a half hour before the museum closed.

But once Cece paid for their admissions, she led Melissa away from the splashy exhibition, zigzagged through a labyrinth of empty corridors, weaved behind some tall crates to sneak through a loading area, and eventually crept down a disused staircase towards the basement. She pulled a security badge out of her pocket and swiped them into a small dark storage closet with a reinforced metal door.

“Where did you get that?” Melissa asked. “What are we doing in here?”

“Waiting it out,” Cece whispered, delightedly. “They’ll be closing in ten minutes.” She checks her watch. “We stay in here for twenty-five, give all the worker bees a chance to go home, and then we have the place to ourselves!”

“This is a museum,” Melissa hissed. “They have security cameras! And guards!”

“Relax,” Cece assured her. “It’s taken care of.”

“This is crazy!” Melissa protested. “If I have to spend my birthday in jail-”

“You won’t,” Cece said, her voice lower and more serious than usual. “I promise. No one should have to spend their birthday locked up.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do for twenty five minutes?” 

“Look around,” Cece answered. “Unless you just want to stand here in the dark, telling secrets.” She handed Melissa a small flashlight, which Melissa quickly flipped on.

The beam of the flashlight revealed a small square patch of floor, and towering metal storage racks that covered the walls around them. 

Melissa gasped. Every shelf was filled with paintings, items from the permanent collection in need of reframing or scheduled to be shipped out to other museums on loan. Paintings in need of small repairs and bequests that hadn’t made their way to the galleries yet. 

Cece reached over and picked up a Degas, held the frame up to the flashlight beam so that it looked like the girl on the canvas was telling a ghost story.

“God, the brush work is incredible,” Melissa remarked. “What else is down here?”

They spent the next hour standing hip to hip, working their way through various oil paintings and pastels and watercolors. Melissa found a small box of cloth gloves and was running her fingers gently over the frames as Cece held them up for close examination. 

They were nearly done when Cece pointed at an unopened packing crate on the bottom shelf. 

“It looks Russian,” Melissa mused, as she studied the lettering on the label. Cece crouched down next to her and carefully pried it open with a Swiss Army knife. There, underneath a soft coating of packing peanuts, was Van Gogh’s _White House at Night._

Melissa stared at it for a solid ten minutes in silence, before Cece removed the glove from her right hand and moved Melissa’s fingertip to the ball of light in the corner of the painting, feeling the ridges of the paint gently with the pad of her naked finger.

“Venus,” Cece said. 

“Six weeks before he died,” Melissa replied, her voice barely a whisper.

“We’re like time travelers,” Cece told her. “Or astronauts, touching another planet.”

Melissa turned her face away from the Van Gogh and towards Cece, noted how the air in the small space suddenly felt charged, the skin of Cece’s hand soft and warm against her own. Cece’s eyes were locked on her own, and everything felt dark and unmistakably romantic until Cece stood up suddenly, breaking the spell.

“We could steal it, if you want,” she offered. “Those colors would go really well in your living room.”

\-----------------

They spent a few more hours wandering through the actual exhibits, passing a series of disabled security cameras with impunity and at least two guards who appeared to be either drunk or asleep. They were discussing whether to leave and go out for sushi or make a snack for themselves in the cafe when a voice called out, “Hey!”

A middle aged man wearing wire rimmed spectacles and glasses was hurrying towards them. 

“What do you think you’re doing here?” he sputtered. Melissa read his name badge, which identified him as John Jones, Gift Shop Manager.

“What are we doing here?” Melissa demanded. “We’ve been locked in by your incompetent staff and lackadaisical approach to security!”

“It’s true,” Cece said, in a babydoll voice that she reserved for tricking men into thinking she was a damsel in distress. “We were trapped!”

“Both my parents are lawyers,” Melissa continued. “And if you don’t let us out of here _right now_ , I guarantee they will sue you, personally, for wrongful imprisonment.”

John Jones glanced down the corridor at the guard snoring away at the security desk. “I’m - I’m so sorry,” he stammered. “Right this way, ladies!”

Cece interlaced her fingers with Melissa’s and they strode out the front doors of the museum hand in hand.

\---------------------

Melissa spent the next several weeks throwing herself into her classes. She tried not to think about Cece, which was made easier by the fact that Cece herself was incommunicado. No texts. No calls. One of the weird silences that sometimes descended around their friendship before Cece would reappear, as charming and erratic and intoxicating as ever.

Melissa might have tried hacking into the registrar’s office to see if she could find out where Cece lived. Not because she wanted to see her, or drive by her place. Certainly not because she missed her. She was curious. A simple and uncomplicated emotion. Unlike the tide of confusion and pangs of disappointment that rolled through her stomach when the only information that came up was a billing address to a shell corporation. 

Cece was capable of disappearing so completely, it was almost like she didn’t exist.

\--------------------

The next time they saw each other, Melissa was drinking lukewarm beer out of a red plastic cup and fending off the amorous advances of the frat brother manning the keg.

“Hey,” Cece said, as she suddenly appeared behind her. The drunk dude bro made a move to grope Melissa’s ass and Cece silently intercepted him, twisting his wrist until it made an ominous snapping noise. 

“Hey,” Melissa replied. “Where have you been?”

“Did you miss me?” Cece grinned, not answering the actual question. “Because I didn’t come here for the sparkling conversation of the Kappa Delts.”

“I didn’t either,” Melissa admitted, taking over the keg as the frat guy slumped against the wall in pain. “I’m doing recon. I think Ian’s cheating on me. With a girl who works at _Hooters._ ”

“Unacceptable,” Cece declared, in mock outrage. 

Melissa couldn’t help herself. She smiled back at her, bumped her lightly with her hip. “Maybe I did miss you.”

“What do you care about him, anyway?” Cece asked her, curiously. “Ian is nothing. He’s a Ken doll with real hair and a field hockey stick.”

“Which is why it’s so insulting that _he_ is cheating on _me_.”

“Do you even like him?”

“That’s irrelevant. I like having the option of him.”

“I get it. Like a screenplay. You want right of first refusal.”

“Exactly,” Melissa agreed, as she scanned the crowd.

“I saw him heading upstairs,” Cece advised. “But what’s the endgame here? Do you want him back, or just want her out of the way?”

“Why should I have to choose?”

“Fair enough,” Cece agreed, as she led Melissa through the throng of people and up the stairs to the second floor. 

“Are they in his bedroom?” Melissa asked. “Because I will barge in there and-”

“And what? Become the psycho ex-girlfriend that he laughs about with his buddies? Let me handle this.”

Cece whipped out her phone and sent a quick text. Then she deftly pushed Melissa into the linen closet across from Ian’s room. “Watch and learn,” she said, closing the door so that a slat of light was all they could see of the hallway.

Moments later, a blonde girl burst through the door of Ian’s room. There were muffled noises and Melissa clearly heard his deep baritone sounding panicky.

“You’re disgusting!” the waitress said as she stumbled past their hiding place. “She’s a child, for godsakes!”

The noises sounded like Ian was pulling his pants back on, his belt buckle banging against the dresser as his date ran into the bathroom to get her clothes in order. Cece kicked the door of the closet open and leaned forward to kiss Melissa right as he appeared, still shirtless, in the doorway.

It wasn’t anything like Melissa imagined it would be. Not that she’d imagined it. Not even a little. Certainly not a lot. Not obsessively, anyway. This kiss wasn’t tender or hot or even real. It was for show, deliberately porny, like a cruel joke. A sloppy open mouth tongue kiss, as if Cece were pretending they were starlets at the MTV awards. To her horror, Melissa felt tears pricking her eyes. She pushed Cece away.

“You’re welcome,” Cece whispered, as she slipped out of the closet and disappeared into the shadows.

Ian was frozen to the spot, looking dumbfounded. Or maybe, Melissa realized, just dumb.

“Woah,” he said. “Melissa?” He moved his hands in an attempt to cover the bulge in his pants. “Do you wanna….” he jerked his head towards his room in invitation.

Melissa followed him inside without saying a word. The moment the door closed, she kneed him in the groin. “We’re breaking up,” she announced.

\-----------------

The moment the Hooters girl stepped out of the bathroom, unseen hands shoved her hard from behind. She went down the stairs head first.

\----------------

Melissa was seated across from Ian at a restaurant on the waterfront. She scanned the menu for the most ludicrously expensive item. If she was going to entertain his pleas for forgiveness, she wanted him to pay through the nose. At a place with obscenely expensive table linens.

The lobster thermidor, she decided. She could eat three bites and leave the rest untouched.

Her cell phone pinged. 

>Ever been to Cape May?

She waited until after her second bite, then threw the napkin on the table.

\---------------- 

Cece was vague on what she was doing in Cape May, casually evasive when Melissa asked where she was staying, who she was with.

“I’m here for a vacation, not an interrogation,” she said good naturedly, adjusting her floppy white hat as they sunbathed. 

\----------------

They drove all the way to Atlantic City for a late dinner. “There’s nowhere in Cape May worth dressing up for,” Cece declared, as they perused a boutique window for little black dresses.

Dinner turned into dinner followed by drinks at Caesars. Melissa concentrated on acting normal. Or as normal as possible while she was also trying not to stare at Cece’s long tanned legs.

“Here,” Cece said, leading them over to a Triple Diamond slot machine. She slipped Melissa a twenty. “Play.”

“A slot machine? Seriously? These things are like the carnival ring toss of casinos - the house always wins.”

“Trust me,” Cece said, with an enigmatic smile. “Make it look real.”

Melissa sighed and pulled the lever. The machine came up 7 / Bar / Nothing. Cece nodded encouragingly, and Melissa pulled the handle, losing $12 in about 40 seconds.

The next pull it seemed like the machine was spinning for a little longer than it had before. It stopped in slow motion. Diamond. Diamond. Diamond. A siren on top started to whir, as an electronic voice bleated out the words “Big Winner! Big Winner!” The machine was making cha-ching noises as it rolled the numbers up for Melissa’s winnings. Eight thousand dollars.

She turned around to catch a glimpse of Cece’s sly grin as she fiddled with something in her change purse. Melissa pushed the button to cash out and hugged Cece, her face flushed with excitement. 

“That’s my girl,” Cece said.

They moved on to Harrah’s, where Melissa had another run of odds-defying luck at the roulette table. Then to the Tropicana where she counted cards while Cece flirted with the blackjack dealer. In ninety minutes their total haul was almost forty grand. 

Melissa was swilling a glass of $500 champagne as they walked towards the garish lights of the Trump Taj. “One more,” Cece begged. “We haven’t even hit the poker tables yet.”

They both bought a hefty stack of chips. Cece sat down and pulled out a crib sheet that showed the order of winning hands for no limit Texas Hold Em. The businessmen sitting nearby grinned.

“You a new player, little lady?”

Cece giggled coquettishly. “Just hoping to get lucky!’

Without discussing it in advance, they fell into a pattern. Cece would make ridiculously bad bets, the hedge fund managers falling all over themselves to explain the game to her, and way too distracted to realize that Melissa was steadily taking them to the cleaners.

After an hour, Melissa mentally tallied their chips and realized they’d now cleared almost seventy-five grand, total. “We should go,” she said, putting a hand on Cece’s knee to get her attention.

Cece looked at her, her eyes bright and reckless. “Well boys - looks like this’ll be my last hand. Go big or go home, I always say.” She pushed her entire stack of chips in before the bidding had even started. “All in,” she declared.

Melissa matched her, as did a stockbroker and a real estate magnate who’d recently joined the game. Cece won the entire pot with a straight flush, acting confused and adorably delighted.

“Oh,” she said, “You mean it’s not fake money? I should give it all back!” The suckers wouldn’t hear of it, of course. One tried to slip her his room key, another gave her his business card and asked her to call if she was ever in London.

Melissa calculated the haul in front of them. The last hand had doubled their winnings.

\----------

The boardwalk was dark and deserted at 2am as they left the Taj. Cece handed Melissa a small flask of whiskey that she’d lifted from someone’s suit jacket at the coat check. She took a swig and felt the burn in the back of her throat. She wasn’t drunk. She didn’t need to have an arm around Cece’s waist to steady herself.

“How do you do it?” she asked, her mouth against Cece’s ear.

“I didn’t do anything,” Cece laughed.

“No one is that lucky.”

“The lucky woman is the one who leaves nothing to chance.”

Melissa could hear the waves crashing on the beach behind them, like a curtain of sound that made the night seem private, intimate. She wasn’t afraid, she told herself. She was a Hastings. Her eyes were fixed on Cece’s lips, which were glossy and slightly parted. She leaned forward slowly.

But Cece pulled away, tugged Melissa towards the shuttered amusement park that had closed hours earlier. She picked the lock on the gate effortlessly and then pulled a hidden lever that brought the whole place roaring to life with blinking lights and carnival music.

She grabbed a big stuffed teddy bear from a ring toss booth and then dragged Melissa over toward the empty ferris wheel. Melissa didn’t object as Cece pulled the lap bar down and their car swung started climbing slowly upward. 

“Are you scared?” Melissa asked.

The lights were blinking on and off in a time with the music sequence, casting half of Cece’s face in a flickering pattern of shadow and light. 

“Is scared the one where you get kind of jumpy? And your stomach feels cold all of a sudden?”

“That’s nervous. Scared is like, you’re sweaty and your heart is racing.” 

“I don’t get scared.”

Melissa put a hand against Cece’s neck, trailed it slowly downward until it was resting lightly against her chest. She smiled. Cece’s heartbeat pounded in time with her own. “Liar.”

They reached the top of the ferris wheel’s rotation just as Melissa tilted her face toward Cece and kissed her, a mix of desire and determination coating her lips. Cece kissed her back softly, teasingly. But she broke the kiss as Melissa tried to deepen it.

“You barely know me,” she said. 

“We’ve committed at least five felonies together.”

Cece stared out over the water. 

“Maybe I have a boyfriend. Maybe I’m staying with his family right now.”

“Duh,” Melissa said. She brushed a lock of hair off Cece’s face. “So do I. But if they were important, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

Cece turned towards her. Her eyes bored into Melissa’s, like they were trying to convey something vital. “Maybe I do bad things sometimes.”

“Who doesn’t?”

“Maybe,” Cece said, her voice pitched low. “Maybe everything I’ve ever told you is a lie.”

“Stop it,” Melissa replied. “You’re not going to talk me out of wanting this.”

“Maybe I live in an asylum. Maybe underneath this banging bod, I’m nothing but a dangerous freak. Maybe I’m not -” Cece paused, her voice breaking. “Maybe I’m not who you think I am.”

“Shut up,” Melissa ordered, in her most authoritative voice. She squeezed Cece’s hand forcefully. “Listen to me! I want this. I want this with you and there’s nothing you could tell me - _nothing_ \- that would make me change my mind, okay?”

Cece nodded, and her eyes shimmered a bit, a trick of the light. She wrapped a hand around the back of Melissa’s neck and kissed her hard. They didn’t stop kissing, even as Cece kicked the lever with a heel to halt the ride. They didn’t break apart as they left the amusement park unlocked, lit up and empty. They didn’t come up for air until they toppled onto the beach, as Cece ripped the zipper of Melissa’s cocktail dress, the gritty sand against her bare skin.

“A room,” Melissa panted, as Cece’s hands roamed her body. She sucked at a pulse point on Cece’s neck, then bit down lightly to get her attention. “A bed with sheets. We’re not animals.”

Cece nodded. And she must have taken steps, somewhere in between the groping and the moans and the frenzied kisses. The next thing Melissa knew, they were in a private elevator at the Resorts Hotel, and Cece was unclasping Melissa’s bra as bell dinged for their arrival to the penthouse suite.

They tumbled onto the bed with the lights still off, indifferent to the view. The floor to ceiling windows let the lights of the city filter in, bathed their discarded clothes in puddles of muted neon. And then they were naked and everything was a haze of hands and tongues and tangled limbs. It was as if Cece could read her mind, she was everywhere at once, doing exactly what Melissa wanted before she even had a chance to ask. Cece pinned her wrists and Melissa felt like her entire body was a lit fuse, like every inch of her skin was sparking. 

She felt the silk of the sheets sliding cool and smooth against her skin as she wrapped a leg around Cece’s waist to roll herself on top, trailed a series of wet kisses down Cece’s lithe frame. Cece’s skin was so pale against the dark blue sheets, her body looked like a continent rising out of the ocean, like erotic topography. She nipped at a spot just above the hollow of Cece’s hip, wished she could map each place they were touching, mark it with a star, like they do for important landmarks, natural wonders. She imagined her fingers tracing the lines of longitude and latitude that brought them here, wished she could memorize them, guarantee they’d be able to find their way back to this place where nothing mattered but the way Cece’s body was shaking, the way her hips lifted off the bed, her hands fisted in Melissa’s hair.

The sex stretched out until sunrise, until they were both sprawled across the mattress, completely spent. Melissa pulled the covers over them. Cece’s eyes were closed, her breathing steady and even. She ran a fingertip slowly along the line of her jaw. “Cece Drake,” she whispered, like the words were a spell, a charm, a way of keeping her close.

Cece stirred. “Melissa Hastings,” she smiled, sleepily. “Will you do something for me?”

“Of course,” Melissa promised, her mouth against Cece’s ear. “Anything.”

“Call me Charlotte.”


End file.
